


Not Okay

by JayRain



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 17:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12325563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayRain/pseuds/JayRain
Summary: Melina Amell can't put her finger on what's wrong, but Alistair reminds her that she doesn't have to.





	Not Okay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [I_Write_Tragedies_Not_Sins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Write_Tragedies_Not_Sins/gifts).



 

The castle walls oozed a damp chill; most complained about it, and servants scurried to light fires in hearths and torches in sconces.  But for Melina, the cold was comforting and familiar.  The scent of damp stone didn’t fill her with dismay, but helped ground her in the present.  She rested her hand on the wall next to her bed, and took one deep breath after another.  If she felt the wall, felt the breath in her lungs, felt the bed beneath her body, she didn’t have to feel everything else.

Someone knocked softly on her door and Melina hastily rubbed her eyes on a sheet and blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision and praying that her eyes weren’t swollen and red.  She swallowed her tears and tried to loosen the tightness in her ribs so she could get a decent breath that wouldn’t result in her bursting into sobs.

She padded across the floor: also stone, also chilly through her thin slippers.  She opened the door and would have slammed it shut had not the person on the other side wedged his foot firmly in the doorway.  “Good thing I kept my boots on,” King Alistair teased, and through the crack in the door Melina could tell he was smiling, his warm hazel eyes crinkles slightly at the edges.

Melina sighed and stepped back.  “Your majesty.” She dropped into a half-hearted curtsey and then stood there, hands folded before her and head bowed.

“Come now, Mellie, we’re hardly on formal terms,” he said, still standing in the doorway.  “May I come in?”

She nodded and he entered.  He left the door ajar, conscious of her need for propriety.  “How may I attend you?” she asked.

Alistair leaned against the wall.  His straw-colored hair stuck up in spikes.  “I hadn’t seen much of you, and I guess I just missed my… my friend.”

“You’re kind,” she said.  The cold seeped into her feet.

“Mellie.”  She looked up.  He watched her with concern etched onto his face.  “What’s wrong?”

She shrugged as the band of emotions tightened around her ribs again, making breathing hard and speech impossible.  She herself didn’t know what bothered her.  Perhaps it was the weight of so many choices she’d made, trying to do the right thing, and falling short.  Perhaps it was the conflicting emotions she’d felt two days ago as she dutifully watched Alistair take his equally dutiful wedding vows.  Perhaps it was the way she realized that she was glad he was here, even as she felt guilty that a married man--a king, no less--was in her bedroom late at night.

“I don’t know,” she finally choked out.  

There was relief at saying it, but also fear.  If she didn’t know what was wrong, how could she fix it?  Panic settled into her, tightening around her chest, roiling in her stomach, buzzing in her ears.  Only when she started seeing stars, did she remember to breathe, even if it hurt going past the lump in her throat.

“I’m not okay,” she blurted out and the tears came, and her magic crackled around and within her.  How ironic: the healer couldn’t heal herself.  The empath felt her own emotions too  heavily.

The sensation of unchecked magic faded softly.  She looked up to see Alistair standing straighter, holding out his hand toward her.  Of course; templar-trained.  “Only because it’s hurting you,” he told her.  “Come here.”  He held out his other hand, and though propriety dictated that this was wrong, Mellie went to him.

Alistair held her for a long while, not talking: just breathing, just holding her, just neutralizing the mana spikes when her emotions flared unexpectedly.  At last she pulled away and blinked back the tears.  He led her to the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress with her, maintaining respectful distance, but still so present and kind.  “Mellie… it’s okay you know.”

“Is it?” she asked dully.

“It is.  It’s okay to not be okay.  I’m here for you whether you’re okay or not.”

“But I need to… I didn’t mean…” She sighed.  “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.  It’s okay to not be okay,” he repeated.

She nodded, and even though they didn’t speak for a long while, even as the torches burned down and the damp chill became ever more pervasive, he remained with her.


End file.
